52 JOSEPH T. FARQUHARSON

 Screw up me mout an roll me y'eye
 An foreign up me tongue. (JL 57-60)

 The speakers in "Gay Paree" and "Amy Son" are convinced that their
acquisition of a new tongue highlights them as intellectually and
culturally above the common folk. It is however in "Noh Lickle Twang!"
that we get a true picture of what is really going on (i.e. why these
speakers are so preoccupied with the whole business of speaking a
foreign language). The speaker is an irate mother who is disappointed
that her son has returned from "Merica" after six whole months and
has nothing to show for it. In the absence of material wealth she is
surprised that the boy has not even come back with the commodity
that all Jamaicans are expected to take back a foreign accent (Not
even lickle language, bwoy? / Not even lickle twang?" [SP 11-12]).
Implicit in this statement is the perception that Creole is not a language,
and society would have marked the acquisition of English or at least
the twang as a sure sign of improvement. The speaker is quite aware of
the social implications of one coming back just as one left and predicts
derision from the rest of society for her son who has come back empty-
handed and 'empty-tongued'.
 While Jamaicans are fascinated with twangs, those who do it in
extremis are most often the victims of ridicule, just like Cudjoe Scoop
in "Dry-Foot Bwoy." It is interesting that Amy's son was admired for
his use of Spanish and the persona in "Gay Paree" considered her French
a sign of her 'good brains'; however, Cudjoe Scoop is seen as a 'show-
off'. We cannot ignore that Cudjoe Scoop has returned with an Oxbridge
accent as Nettleford informs us. Compare this with the approval of
the American accent in "Noh Lickle Twang" and we might be seeing a
covert form of linguistic resistance in preferring an American (land of
opportunities) twang, as opposed to a British (colonisers) twang. These
poems reveal the linguistic dialectic that exists in Jamaica, a former
colony with a people who still use 'foreign' as the measuring stick for
everything and are still psychologically linked to the colonialists.
 "Bans a Killin" is a witty and poignant defence of JC ('dialec'). The
persona seems to be quite learned and quite well-read,5 and utilises


 '"Bans 0 Killing" is a spirited counterattack on those who would "kill" or
eradicate the use of dialect, and it is also a pointed reminder that in the large
linguistic scheme of things English itself is another dialect, neither inferior nor
superior to its Jamaican counterpart" (Brown 109).